


Eclipsed

by Riona



Category: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: F/M, Guilt, infidelity to a missing partner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 03:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: There's a strange tension between Serah and Hope, but she can't act on it when Snow's still out there. He's probably still out there. He might still be out there, somewhere.





	Eclipsed

**Author's Note:**

> There's so little Hope/Serah fanfiction! I've shipped it since the moment he got embarrassed about being so happy to see her again.

“Please,” Hope says, when they’re leaving the Yaschas Massif and its eternal eclipse, “come back and visit.”

It’s not the ‘please’ of an invitation extended for politeness’s sake; it’s the ‘please’ of a man in the desert asking for water. Hope seems to realise it as he’s speaking, and for an instant he looks so embarrassed that Serah has to struggle not to laugh.

“I will,” she says. “I promise.”

He didn’t say ‘come back soon’. He just said ‘come back’. Maybe, after losing everyone else, he feels that ‘soon’ is too much to ask.

-

The darkness and the quiet seem to swallow her up whenever she comes back here; it feels like she forgets what the sun looks like the moment she comes out of the Gate. What must it be like for Hope, without the option of escaping to a time when the sun still shines?

“I miss it,” he admits, when she asks. “But there are things I miss more.”

It’s something they share: all these people who’ve just disappeared from their lives. And they don’t know what happened, they don’t know where they went, they don’t have any way of finding closure.

She doesn’t like thinking about the fact that Hope hasn’t heard from _her_ in almost a decade. If she survives this journey, if she returns to her home time, she can’t imagine not trying to stay in touch with Hope afterwards; she can’t abandon him, not after this. If she hasn’t been in contact with him, does that mean she doesn’t make it home?

-

Hope shows her his research, although she’s not sure how much sense she can make of it. Energy readings, roughly sketched maps of how places are expected to change over time. Notes on where they suspect Vanille and Fang are located inside the pillar, and whether it would be possible to pull them out somehow. Serah stands almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him, looking over tables spread with documents, wondering whether the key to finding Lightning or Snow is somewhere in here.

Not quite shoulder-to-shoulder. It feels like he’s always very careful not to actually touch her, and somehow that’s more uncomfortable than the occasional touch would be.

“I almost killed Snow once,” Hope blurts out.

She looks at him, startled. It’s come out of nowhere. “What?”

“Not recently,” Hope says, quickly. “When we were l’Cie. In Palumpolum. I – sorry, he probably already told you about this.”

“You almost killed him?” Serah asks. “He never said anything. It was an accident, right?”

Hope shifts restlessly, scratches his neck, obviously upset. He won’t look at her. “I _tried_ to kill him. I’d been planning it for days.”

_Hope?_ No. “What? Why?”

“My mother,” Hope says. “I blamed him for what happened to her. He was hanging over a drop, and I could have helped him up, and I pulled out Light’s knife...” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t his fault. He was just trying—”

Lightning’s knife? The one Serah gave her? She doesn’t ask; she doesn’t want to know. “Why are you telling me this?”

He looks at her at last. “I was – I was just thinking, I didn’t know if you’d want to be around me if you knew. I needed to make sure. So you could make the choice.”

Serah looks carefully at him. “You’re trying to drive away the last person from your past.”

“It’s not like that. I don’t _want_ you to leave. I just... it didn’t seem right if you didn’t know.”

He tried to kill Snow? Fourteen years old and angry and grieving—

“Snow didn’t tell me,” she says. “I guess that means he didn’t want me to hold it against you.”

Snow’s left her with a lot of burdens, a lot of obligations, some of them easier to bear than others. But forgiving Hope is one she can handle. Snow came through alive, after all.

“We’re okay,” she says.

She hadn’t realised how much tension Hope was carrying until she sees his relief. “I’m glad,” he says.

“The past is the past,” she says. Maybe that’s a strange thing to say when you’ve been travelling in time. “We’re here now. We need to hold on to each other.”

-

“It’s late,” Hope says eventually, starting to pack up his research.

Serah yawns. She’s so sleepy, but somehow it hadn’t hit her until Hope said that. _Is_ it late? She has no real sense of time passing here. “Mm.”

“Do you need a bed for the night?” Hope asks.

A moment passes.

“I mean, you and Noel,” Hope says, suddenly flustered. “I mean, probably two beds. Do you need—”

“A room would be great,” Serah says. “Two beds. Thank you.”

Hope glances away and coughs. “I’ll – I’ll arrange that.”

Serah puts a hand on his arm, to make him look at her. Everything feels a little dreamlike. A part of her feels like she’s been dreaming ever since Noel came into her life. Maybe ever since Lightning disappeared.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” she asks.

Hope looks uncomfortable. “Do I think who’s still alive?”

He knows who she means. She can see it in his face. But he asked, so she has to say it. “Snow.”

Hope’s quiet for a moment before he speaks. “He really loved you.”

Serah lets out a breath. It’s shaking a little, more than she’d like it to be. “You’re saying he’s dead. Because otherwise he’d have come home.”

“I’m not saying that,” Hope says. “I’m just saying he really loved you.”

Serah looks out at the sky, eternally dark. “He did.”

Maybe he still does. It’s not like she has any way of knowing.

Sometimes she hates Snow for leaving, even though he did it for her and her sister. She’s been left alone, she doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead, but she’s still tied to him. What if he never comes back? Is she just going to have to keep waiting? Is she never allowed to move on?

“And I still love him,” she says. “It’s tough.”

Hope shifts on his feet next to her. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

“I think you can,” she says. “We’ve both lost a lot of people.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“I wish I could have been him for you,” he says.

She looks at him. How should she read that? “Snow?”

“I don’t mean...” He hesitates. The words he’s not saying are pressing in on their conversation; Serah feels like it might collapse under their weight. “I just mean, you were probably hoping you’d find him. I’m sorry you got me instead.”

“Don’t say that. I’m glad you’re here.”

He smiles, just a little, awkwardly. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here too.”

They’re standing close to each other. A little too close, perhaps, and she can tell when he realises it. She thinks about stepping back.

She grips his wrist, briefly. Moves her hand up to touch his face. She can see him swallow.

It feels like this moment has been under the surface of their conversation all evening, growing closer. Maybe not just this evening; maybe every time she’s been back here. In a way she thinks she might have been waiting for it to emerge, half fearful, half... she doesn’t know what. Something else. And now it’s actually here, this is somehow the moment she’s living in.

Everything feels so still around them. She’s waiting to see what he’ll do.

Hope clears his throat. It seems like an effort. “I should probably go to bed. Ah—” He looks terrified, suddenly. “To _sleep_. I should go to sleep.”

Serah starts to laugh, and the suspense... it’s not _broken_ , exactly, but it lifts a little. She takes her hand away. “Sleep well.”

-

She’s not in love with Hope, or at least she doesn’t think she is. That makes it worse, doesn’t it? If she’s going to want someone who isn’t Snow, it feels as if she should at least be in love with him.

She cares about Hope. He’s important to her. She’s not in love.

Maybe it’s just their shared points of connection. They’ve both lost so many of the same friends, and here they are now, the last ones who really know what happened three years ago. Others heard about it, but they were _part_ of it.

And there’s nobody else left.

-

“Can we speak in private?” Serah asks.

She thinks she sees Hope redden, just a little. Maybe she’s imagining it.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he says.

“You don’t trust me?”

It’s a cruel thing to say, she knows. Because his reservations make sense, but how can he turn her down when she’s asked that?

She says it anyway. People are always telling her she’s a sweet person, perhaps too sweet. But she knows how to be cruel, even if she keeps it well-hidden.

Hope hesitates. “Of course I do.” Another moment’s hesitation. “I guess we can talk in my room.”

-

She kisses him the moment they’re alone. No more waiting. The waiting is killing her; the suspense keeps building and building and never, never breaks. She’s taking her life into her hands; she’s making this happen now.

Hope makes a noise against her mouth, surprise or resignation or want. Puts his hands on her sides, snatches them away like they’ve been burnt. Puts them on her shoulders. To push her away, she thinks, or to pull her closer. But he doesn’t do either.

She knows there’s going to be fallout, there are going to be consequences. If she’s going to face them, she wants to face them _now_ ; she can’t stand seeing them as vague shadows in her future, spiralling out from something that hasn’t even happened yet.

She half-pulls back. “I’m going to kiss you again,” she says, breathless. “Tell me you want me to stop.”

Hope shakes his head, too fast. She can feel his heart beating under her hands like it’s trying to knock through his ribcage. “Don’t make this my decision.”

“You have to decide,” she says. “You’re a part of this. I’ve already made my decision. You have to make yours.”

Hope’s breathing is shaky. His entire body is trembling, she realises suddenly; she’s not sure he’d even be able to stay on his feet if he didn’t have her there to hold on to. “It’s – it’s not the only question. Whether we want this, I mean.”

“Why not?” she demands. “Three years. Ten years. When do we get to make our own decisions again?”

“I can’t – Snow might still—”

She can’t do this, she can’t hear his name. Not right now.

“Hope,” she says, with an effort at a laugh, “for once in your life, can’t you just try... not thinking so much?”

He’s silent for a moment. When he speaks, the trembling has almost gone from his voice.

“I’ve acted without thinking before,” he says. “I nearly killed Snow. And now I’m kissing his fiancée.”

Serah closes her eyes. Hope kisses her on the forehead, gently, and then she feels the weight of his hands leaving her shoulders.

“I can’t do this, Serah.”

“I understand.” She tries to laugh again; it doesn’t work. “You’re a lot stronger than I am.”

-

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” she asks Noel, as they lie side-by-side on the grass of the Yaschas Massif that night. Not that night and day mean much here. She couldn’t take up Hope’s offer of a room, not tonight.

“What, with this Hope thing?”

“Is it that obvious?” She can feel herself blushing. She tries to focus on the stars. The night sky on Pulse is so beautiful; even after three years in New Bodhum, she’s still amazed by it sometimes.

There’s the sound of Noel shifting beside her, but she can’t bring herself to turn and look at him.

“I guess I don’t have much of a frame of reference,” he says, after a while. “Romance wasn’t really a big thing in my time.”

“No?”

“I told you I was the last child to be born, right? That should tell you something.” He pauses. “I don’t know, I guess people were thinking too much about staying alive to really focus on anything else. I don’t...” He gives an awkward cough. “I don’t... know a lot about these things.”

Now she does look over at him. She never really thought about it before, but... “It must be so strange for you,” she says. “Everything in the past must seem so different.”

“Yeah,” he admits. “It does. But that’s not a bad thing.” He hesitates. “Sorry I can’t be more helpful. But Hope seems like a good guy.”

“He is,” she says. “That wasn’t my question, though.”

He meets her eyes. “I don’t think you could ever be a bad person, Serah.”

She doesn’t know whether she believes it, or believes that Noel believes it. Even if he’s just saying it to make her feel better, though, it means something that he wants to do that.

She’s lucky to have so much love in her life. It’s just... so strange and twisted and fragmented across time, and so many of the people she loves are missing.

-

She writes a letter of apology to Snow. It’s long, and it veers too often into blaming him; she’s aware that she’s making excuses even as she’s writing it. _I’m sorry. I feel terrible. But you were gone._

Not that it matters. She doesn’t know where she’d need to send it, if it would be possible for him to read it at all. Even if she had a way of getting it to him, she doesn’t know if she’d have the nerve to.

And he should really hear this from her directly, face to face. She owes him that.

(He owes _her_ that. She should have a chance to see him.)

-

They’ve repaired the timeline. The eclipse is gone, the sky is clear. There’s sunlight on the Yaschas Massif.

Hope greets her with enthusiasm, with a hug, and she knows in an instant that he doesn’t remember her.

He remembers who she is, of course. But he doesn’t remember meeting her in his adulthood, he doesn’t remember anything that happened between them. He’d be hesitant if he knew.

It’s simpler this way. This Hope doesn’t have to go through that conflict, that pain, that guilt.

It still hurts.

But Serah can bear the pain on her own. She’s had time to get good at that.


End file.
